GAZA, (PIC)
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor revealed a complex crime committed by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) against a Palestinian family consisting of an elderly mother and her four children, including three daughters and an 18-months old granddaughter.
The Euro-Med said that the IOF stormed the family’s home in Al-Shuja’iya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, on Thursday evening, June 27, and opened fire at the family members inside the house, then took them out and detained them while they were wounded for more than three hours and put them inside and next to the military tanks. The Euro-Med reported that the crime occurred in a dangerous combat zone, where soldiers used the family members as human shields and ran over the mother, Safiya Hassan Musa al-Jamal, 65, while she was still alive before the eyes of her son.
Muhannad Al-Jamal, 28 years old, the son of the elderly woman who was run over to death, told, in detail, the Euro-Med team about the crime, starting with the IOF soldiers approaching the house and besieging it until they broke into it and fired at the family members who were inside.
“I was injured by shrapnel in my back and my sister was hit by shrapnel as well, while my other sisters were screaming: ‘We are civilians!’ My mother was injured with a large size shrapnel in her chest,” he said.
Al-Jamal explained that the IOF soldiers stripped him of his clothes, made him stand next to a wall and kept pointing their weapons at him for half an hour, then he was told to carry his mother on his back and take her towards a military tank before he was asked to return back home where they took his passport and handcuffed him.
He added that another soldier came to him at approximately 9:45 p.m., and untied him, blindfolded his eyes, and made him stand on a sand hill while he was shining a laser at him. Then he was asked to enter into a tank other than the one in which his mother was held.
He continued, “Then, they dropped me off in an unfamiliar area to me and began to instruct me where to go for about 15 minutes amidst offensive insults. After that, one of the soldiers dragged me by the neck for 50 meters and put me in another tank again.”
“They took my mother out of the tank while she was injured and placed her on the ground. After several minutes, I realized that we were at the end of Al-Nazzaz Street, at the Mushtaha roundabout. There were two tanks to the right and left of the roundabout and I was in the third one. The Israeli soldiers took me out of the tank before it started moving backwards, running over my mother,” Al-Jamal said.
“I saw that and felt as if I had lost my mind. I started crying and screaming in vain; then the tank on the right was approaching me to run over me, but I managed to run away believing that I would definitely be killed, but the two tanks headed towards another street,” he added.
“The tank on the left side was about to run over my mother again, but it stopped. Then, the tanks turned towards me and directed their cannons at me, I managed to hide and began to scream as I heard only the sounds of gunfire. I noticed some dogs approaching my mother’s body, trying to bite her, but I made them go away. It was approximately one o’clock in the morning on Friday, Al-Jamal elaborated, noting that the Israeli soldier in the tank could avoid running over his mother, but he hid it on purpose.”
Al-Jamal recounts the horrific details of what happened to him after the accident and before he had found out the fate of his sisters, who, as he learnt later on, were in the Baptist Hospital receiving treatment.
One of Al-Jamal’s sisters told the Euro-Med team that a female soldier tried to provide first aid to her mother to treat her injury inside the house, before she was taken by Israeli troops who said they were going to take her to the hospital.
The woman added, “They gave us a green light to move to Salah al-Din Street where we were walking while injured and bleeding with an 18-month-old girl; but in the end, we arrived in the Baptist Hospital.”
The Euro-Med confirmed that it had previously documented many Israeli murder crimes committed by the IOF against Palestinian civilians by deliberately running over them with their tanks or armored vehicles while they were alive, such as Jamal Hamdi Hassan Ashour, 62, who was killed after Israeli tanks ran over him in Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City on February 29.
According to the Euro-Med, Ashour, a father of five children, was killed after IOF soldiers arrested him, tied him with plastic handcuffs, and subjected him to interrogation before he was run over with an armored vehicle.
The human rights organization renewed its call on the international community to abide by its obligations to stop the Israeli crime of genocide which has been waged against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for about nine months, and to ensure Israel’s compliance with its international obligations, the two Security Council ceasefire resolutions, and the rulings of the International Court of Justice, in parallel with taking all measures to ensure its accountability for committing war crimes against the Palestinian people.
